by Carlos Alba
The Songs of Manolo Escobar
The Songs of
Manolo Escobar
Carlos Alba
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
This ebook edition published in 2011 by
Birlinn Limited
West Newington House
Newington Road
Edinburgh
EH9 1QS
www.birlinn.co.uk
First published in 2011 by Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd
Copyright © Carlos Alba 2011
The moral right of Carlos Alba to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.
ebook ISBN: 978-0-85790-050-0
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
For my mum and dad
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank several people for helping with the research for this book: Emilio Silva at the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory; Valentina Montoya Martinez for sharing her experiences of coming to Britain from Chile as a child, following her country’s military coup in 1973; staff at La Biblioteca del Casino de Manresa; staff at the Rif Hotel and El Minzah Hotel in Tangier; and Dr Nathanial Gardner at the Glasgow University School of Modern Languages and Cultures.
1
I was five years old when I learned I was Spanish. I came home from school and told Mama I’d been pushed to the ground by a classmate for being a Paki.
‘You’re not a Pakistani, you’re a Spaniard,’ she informed me indignantly.
I returned to school the following day and proudly announced that I was from Spain. I was pushed to the ground by the same classmate for being a Dago.
Even so young, I’d suspected for some time that our family was different. Why, for example, were Pablito, my elder brother, and I dark-haired and tanned when the rest of my classmates had hair the colour of sand, with pale skin and freckles? Why did our family have a second way of speaking, which I didn’t understand? Why was ours the only home I knew where the walls were full of pictures of serious-faced men in waistcoats and tight trousers?
‘We come from another country, another culture,’ Mama told me, which at least helped to explain why my parents were a mama and a papa and not a ma and a da, why they sat glued to the BBC World Service every night with expectant looks on their faces and left in their wake the faint whiff of garlic and Aqua Velva.
Ours was not a neighbourhood that celebrated diversity. Difference was tolerated only if it conformed to expectations: Pakistanis were poor and they ran shops; Italians were well off and they ran cafés; Spaniards slept in the afternoons and lived in Spain. There was no reason for them to be in Mosspark, where there was no afternoon sun to be slept through and where the retail sector had already been sewn up by the Pakistanis and the Italians.
At primary school the teachers, all of them floral-frock-wearing spinsters, insisted on anglicising my name.
‘His name’s Antonio,’ Mama pointed out.
‘We prefer Anthony,’ my Primary One teacher replied with a dismissive tilt of her nose.
‘But his name’s Antonio,’ Mama insisted, a note of exasperation creeping into her voice.
Mosspark’s ignorance of all things Iberian was reflected in the unwanted nicknames that followed me around throughout my childhood – like Greaser or Dago, and, inevitably, Manuel, after the fictional waiter. At least he was actually Spanish. I was also likened to Speedy Gonzalez, the sombrero-wearing Mexican cartoon mouse; Rangi Ram, the Indian lackey from It Ain’t Half Hot Mum; and Idi Amin, the president of Uganda.
Coming to terms with being an outsider in my own country was hard, and the worst of it was I seemed to be alone. Pablito was happy enough to flaunt his foreignness, correcting friends when they mispronounced his name, peppering his sentences with Spanish words and eating Mama’s cooking without complaint.
But I didn’t want to be different. When I was about seven, I made a conscious effort not to learn any more Spanish, and I used that ignorance as a weapon against my parents. Although Mama was trying to learn English and was happy to practise with me, my stubborn refusal to speak or even allow myself to understand Spanish at home provoked a series of angry exchanges with Papa.
‘Habla español,’ he constantly ordered.
‘I don’t want to speak in Spanish,’ I replied.
‘En ese caso, no dicen nada,’ he said. ‘Then don’t say anything.’
I didn’t care. I wanted to be like my friends. I wanted to be Anthony, not Antonio. I wanted to eat sausages and fish suppers, not chorizo and pescaíto frito. I wanted to be normal.
One wet Monday morning in the playground, Bobby Miller – known to all as Max – told me that I’d never be able to play football for Scotland.
‘But I was born here – that makes me Scottish,’ I protested.
‘Disnae work like that. It’s yer da that decides who you can play fur,’ Max Miller insisted. ‘Y’ill huv tae play fur the Dagos.’
It didn’t seem fair. I wanted to play for Scotland. I’d seen the footage of the oily, moustachioed Atlético Madrid players kicking wee Jimmy Johnstone up and down the park when they played Celtic in the European Cup, and, along with every other Scottish supporter, I was appalled.
When I consulted Mama on the matter, she said I could play for either country because I had dual nationality. This sounded like a disease. But if it meant I could play for Scotland, I was prepared to accept it.
‘I can play for Scotland. I have dual nationality,’ I told Max Miller the next day, enunciating the words slowly and deliberately.
This seemed to silence him, but worse was to come. The following week, he appeared in school brandishing a copy of The Victor which included a strip where Matt Braddock, VC and bar – the valiant British Second World War flying ace – single-handedly foiled a Nazi plot to smuggle arms to beastly Irish collaborators through the Iberian peninsula, assisted by equally beastly Spanish fascists. Braddock’s swashbuckling heroics were accompanied by speech bubbles containing imperatives such as ‘Take that, snivelling Nazi Quislings!’ and ‘Eat lead, Hitler-loving swine!’
‘You helped the Jerries in the war,’ Max Miller spat at me accusingly. ‘You cannae be on Britain’s side any more.’
‘What are you talking about? I always fight on Britain’s side,’ I protested. I didn’t want to be banished to fight alongside the friendless dunces who made up the German forces in our daily breaktime game of Commandos.
‘We cannae take the chance,’ he said through grinning teeth. ‘How dae we know you willnae give away secrets tae the Nazis?’
Max Miller had done his homework. He’d consulted with his Uncle Eddie, who’d informed him that thousands of Spanish soldiers and workers had flooded into Germany to help with the Nazi war effort.
I couldn
’t believe what I was hearing. Surely it couldn’t be true? Was I really descended from a nation of Nazi sympathisers? All the stiff-upper-lip values of straight-batted, battling-Jerry-for-Blighty honesty ingrained in my psyche from years of watching the on-screen exploits of Trevor Howard and Jack Hawkins seemed like a sick joke. I may have been a British subject, but I was a second-class British subject, I now realised – and, if Max Miller’s playground straw poll was anything to go by, I was only in Britain under sufferance.
‘Why you wanna know about the bloody war?’ Papa demanded angrily that evening as we ate dinner.
‘A boy in my class says Spain was on the same side as the Jerries.’
‘You tell yer friend tae mind his bloody business.’
‘But is it true?’ I asked desperately.
Papa stopped eating. He put down his fork and looked into my eyes. His face broke into a warm, reassuring smile.
‘Na, is nae true,’ he said, ruffling my hair. ‘You tell yer friend he talk a load a bloody rubbish.’
2
I made my way down an impossibly steep and narrow wooden staircase. On either side, walls were plastered with posters advertising obscure musical acts like Chainsaw Armageddon and Satan’s Rampant Fuckstick.
At the foot of the stairs a stiff door opened into a darkened, smoke-filled room where the unmistakable, musky stench of dope hung heavy in the air. A few shabby, wooden tables were populated by pale, gaunt men dressed mainly in black leather. Thumping, primal rhythms boomed from large speakers. If hell had bars, I felt sure they looked like this.
Is this what I’d spent five years at university and journalism college preparing for? I’d been asking myself this with increasing frequency of late. Earlier in the day I’d been in Bournemouth to interview Britain’s youngest mother, a sullen eleven-year-old who chain-smoked through our exchange while her lumpy-faced mother pored over the details of their contract with the paper. The putative father whom they’d promised I could meet failed to materialise. Why, as a political editor, I should be despatched on such a mission was beyond me. But then job titles didn’t seem to mean anything any more in our ever-dwindling pool of talent. You did what you had to do.
‘It’s got social repercussions,’ Kevin the so-called news editor had insisted. ‘It’s all about Broken Britain. That’s politics, isn’t it?’
After leaving the family to prepare for their imminent infamy, I was making my way back up to London to catch a train to Scotland to visit my parents when Kevin rang again. A reader had been in touch, claiming to have mobile-phone footage of Nigel Piers, the junior environment minister, fellating a Somali rent boy in a public toilet in Clapton. That was hardly news, I pointed out, but Kevin assured me that wasn’t the real story. Piers, the rent boy claimed, had later taken him to Petrus and told him to order what he liked as he’d be claiming the meal on expenses.
The rent boy had demonstrated admirable resourcefulness in snapping the receipt with his phone while Piers was taking a piss, and he was willing to hand over all of the evidence for a price to be negotiated. I was told to meet him in this fetid dungeon in Canning Town and to go no higher than five grand.
A wall of lifeless eyes locked on to me, and I felt myself sweating coldly. I slipped open the top button of my shirt and loosened my tie. I became aware of someone standing in the doorway, immediately behind me, a little too close for comfort. It was the same figure I’d caught sight of outside in the street, minutes earlier. I’d only seen him from behind, but it had been enough for me to make a mental note that this was someone to avoid in a dark alley. He was tall, with greasy black hair tied in a ponytail. Daubed in white paint on the back of his leather biker’s jacket were the words ‘Cradle of Filth’. Dirty, ripped jeans hung loosely around his shapeless arse, their legs tucked into knee-length motorcycle boots. On each wrist he wore a black leather cuff, studded with chrome spikes.
It flashed through my mind that perhaps he’d followed me in. I looked away, trying to ignore him. He moved closer. I tensed as I felt his hand rest on my shoulder.
‘Dad, I thought it was you.’
‘Shit, what are you doing here?’ I demanded, overcome with relief and a less familiar sensation – genuine pleasure at seeing my teenage son.
‘I hang out here sometimes. What are you doing here?’
‘Work, believe it or not. Where the hell did you get these clothes?’ I asked.
‘Camden Market, mostly.’
‘I meant where did you get the money to pay for them?’
‘Gran gave me a couple of hundred for my birthday and Mum bought me the boots.’
‘Jesus, what are they thinking of, letting you walk the streets like that?’
‘I’ve had them for ages. You must have seen them before.’
I decided we should leave. I had no desire to spend another moment of what was supposed to be my free time seeking out the rent boy, least of all in the company of Ben. I’d tell Kevin he hadn’t shown up. If he was that desperate to land the story, he could send one of the bottom-feeders to do it. They were on little more than the minimum wage and, unlike me, had no professional dignity to sacrifice. Whereas I remembered a time when I actually enjoyed going to work in the morning. I thought about quitting the job most days now, but I knew that the way things were going, I’d never find another.
We moved out into the daylight and found a burger bar across the road. I ordered two coffees and carried them to a table where Ben was seated, fiddling with his iPhone. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d witnessed him conscious and vertical. Even when I was at home I barely saw him. He was never out of bed before midday, and in the evenings he was God knows where when he should have been locked away, studying for his A-levels.
‘So how are things?’ I asked.
‘Fine.’
‘Would you care to elaborate?’
He shrugged as he tore open a sachet of sugar, spilling the contents on to the table. He reached for another one, ripped off a corner and deposited the contents into his polystyrene cup.
‘What do you want me to say? Things are fine.’
‘Well, given that I haven’t seen you for over a week, I thought you might have some conversation. Why don’t we start with what you’ve been doing?’
He lifted a plastic stirrer and lethargically dragged it around the inside of his cup.
‘Oh, you know, the usual.’
I resisted the impulse to raise my voice. ‘No, I don’t know. What’s the usual?’
‘The usual – eating, sleeping, studying.’
‘So you are studying?’
‘Yes, I’m studying,’ he said, irritated.
‘Okay, don’t lose your temper.’
‘Well, how would you know whether I have nor not? You’re never around.’
I couldn’t think of a decent retort.
‘So are you and Mum getting a divorce?’ he asked casually.
Actually, it seemed more like a statement than a question, and I felt suddenly disengaged from my surroundings, as though I was coming round after a blow to the head. I was taken aback, not just by his comment, but how blithely he’d made it. I tried to say something, but I was lost, my mind filled with random abstractions – like how much we’d get for the house, who’d take the cat and whether I’d ever have sex again. I placed my hands on the table to steady myself. The bitter smell of cheap coffee was abhorrent, and a wave of nausea washed over me.
‘Is that what your mother said? Did she say that?’
‘No, I managed to figure it by myself.’
I couldn’t abide his cockiness – this was a new thing.
‘Well, don’t figure. Do you hear me? Don’t figure things that you know nothing about.’ I found myself jabbing a finger at his face, and my voice was loud enough to attract the attention of the cleaner at the opposite side of the restaurant.
‘Okay, chill out, you can’t blame me for thinking that. You and Mum hardly talk any more. And when you do, you’re at each other’
s throats.’
I felt a strong desire to see Cheryl right then, to have it out with her, to hear her take on what was going on between us, to know precisely where I stood. I wished I hadn’t agreed to go to Glasgow that afternoon, but Mama’s voice on the phone had sounded so insistent, panicked even.
‘So what kind of work were you doing in that place, anyway?’ Ben asked. ‘You never said.’
‘Oh, it’s not important.’
He nodded uninterertedly and looked away.
‘Will you be home tonight?’
‘I’m going to visit Abuela and Abuelo for a day or two,’ I explained.
‘Christ, what do they want?’
‘Don’t speak about them like that, they’re your grandparents.’
‘Sorry, it’s just that . . . well, there’s always something with them. What’s the crisis this time?’
‘There’s no crisis, they just want to see me, that’s all.’
As the train pulled away, I watched Ben grow smaller and smaller until he was little more than a gothic dot on the platform. I slumped into my seat and sighed, exhausted. I needed to relax. Everything seemed so frenzied and urgent all the time. I was glad I’d decided against flying to Glasgow, finally taking Cheryl’s advice and using the train. I had to admit it was an agreeable change. There was no queuing, no check-in, no security frisking, no X-ray machines.
Cheryl travelled everywhere by train that she couldn’t get to by bike or on foot. She was so infuriatingly virtuous and didn’t seem to understand that not everyone could be as socially responsible as her. What did she know about the demands of the real world, sitting in her municipal ivory tower, sniffly disapproving of my job as though it was some grubby, morally reprehensible pursuit? I agreed with her that global warming was a bad thing. I just didn’t see why it had to occupy such an increasing proportion of the decreasing number of conversations we had together. In our most recent exchange, I’d managed to drive her from the room simply by pointing out that I didn’t have time to worry about composting every time I peeled a banana. She was less than sympathetic. I seemed to have developed a knack of annoying her without trying. We’d lost the ability to talk without each sentence being unpicked for the slightest hint of ulterior motive. We didn’t converse any more, we negotiated emotional territory.